The Wooing of Rebecca

This morning we come to the fifth and final episode of the story of Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation – and our spiritual ancestor, as well.[1] The Lord promised that Abraham would be the father of a great nation – more numerous than all the stars in the sky and all the grains of sand on the seashore. Through Abraham’s descendants, the Lord promised, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And it happened. Jesus of Nazareth is the direct descendant of Abraham. Consequently, Abraham’s God is our God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We saw last week how the Lord tested Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as a burnt offering. Then at the last minute, as the cleaver was about to fall, the angel of the Lord called out:

Abraham, Abraham, do not reach out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God and you have not held back your son, your only one, from Me. [2]

The Lord never intended that Isaac be slaughtered. In fact, child sacrifice was always forbidden in Israel, in contrast to the Canaanite religions, which sanctioned the practice. The Lord planned all along to provide another sacrifice, a ram caught in the thicket. The Church sees in this other sacrifice a prefiguring of the events of Good Friday, when God suffered the loss of his own son, and son suffered the loss of his Father,[3] giving up his life as “the one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, for our sins and for the sins of the whole world.”[4]

Now, we come to the end of Abraham’s life. He has buried his beloved wife, Sarah. He knows that the end is near. His last act is to find a wife for Isaac. But Abraham has a problem. If Isaac marries one of the local Canaanite women, he will also marry her god – Baal, perhaps, or one of the other false gods worshipped in the region. The Canaanites did know Yahweh, the Lord, the living God. If that were to happen, his descendants would become assimilated by the surrounding culture and break faith with the Lord. To solve this problem, Abraham turns to his servant and makes him swear that he will find a wife for Isaac, but not from the Canaanites. This is where we pick up the story this morning at the beginning of the 24^th chapter:

And Abraham was old, advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, elder of his household, who ruled over all things that were his, “Put your hand, pray, under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the Lord, God of the heavens and God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanite in whose midst I dwell. But to my land and to my birthplace you shall go, and you shall take a wife for my son, for Isaac.”

At this point, Abraham fades into the background, and his servant becomes the key player. God often accomplishes his purposes through people on the margins – servants, people without influence or status, “little people.” To us, it often appears that human destiny is determined by the powerful and influential, but God overlooks the proud and uses the humble and poor. It is through these that the kingdom of God advances:

This unnamed servant has been given a formidable task. Because he is a practical man, he points out to Abraham an obvious problem: What if he finds someone among Abraham’s kin, but she refuses to come back with him? And he suggests a plan B:

Perhaps the woman will not want to follow me to this land. Shall I indeed bring your son back to the land you left?

The Lord God of the heavens, Who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birthplace, and Who spoke to me and Who swore to me saying, “To you seed will I give this land,” He shall send His messenger before you and you shall take a wife for my son from there.

Abraham’s answer to the servant expresses deep faith. By now, he has had enough dealings with the Lord to know that he can be trusted. He has come through before; he will come through again. Abraham witnesses to the God whom we serve, the living God, “the Lord God of the heavens.” He accomplishes his sovereign purposes.

Abraham also witnesses to God’s providence. The Hebrew word for “providence” also means, “sight.” The Lord sees our situation – he sees what we cannot see. And on the basis of this sight, he provides what we need. As the narrative unfolds, we will see divine providence at work.

So off the servant goes, taking with him ten camels, loaded with gifts. Clearly, this servant is no fool. He knows the power of gifts to win people over. And he uses his wits to accomplish this task. When he arrives at the region where Abraham’s kinfolk live, he positions himself at a well, knowing that this is where the women gather in the evening. More importantly, he prays:

Yahweh, God of my master Abraham, grant me success here today and show favor to my master Abraham. Here I am standing at the well and the daughters of the inhabitants the city are coming out to draw water! Let it be thus: the girl to whom I say: Please lower your jar that I may drink, and who answers: Drink! and I will water your camels too! – let her be the one you have destined for your servant Isaac. By this I will know you have shown favor to my master.[6]

Notice that he begins his payer by acknowledging who God is: “Yahweh, God of my master Abraham.” When we pray, we also address the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – the living God. Then, notice what he prays for: He acknowledges that God makes the choice. His role is to recognize God’s choice. But note how he expresses it: “Let it be thus: the girl to whom I say: Please lower your jar that I may drink, and who answers: Drink! and I will water your camels too! – let her be the one.” He creates the script. He announces his plan and asks the Lord to give him success. This is genuine prayer. We say to God: Here is what I am going to do; now let my plans be your plans; let my plans intersect yours; or better: let your plans overtake and redirect my plans according in order to fulfill your purposes. When we pray like this, we are free to act. Our plans are always a combination of good and bad motives; clarity and confusion; confidence and doubt. But if it is really true that God’s work redeems ours, then we can launch out boldly for the Lord.

stunning – the servant can see that. But is she unmarried? Is she kin to Abraham? We know of course that she is Abraham’s [great niece]. All the servant knows is that everything proceeds according to the script: he asks her for a sip of water; she gives it to him, then proceeds to get water for the camels. As she does, the servant watches her silently, wondering: Is this the one? When he realizes that his prayer has been answered, he praises God:

Blessed be Yahweh, God of my master Abraham, who has not withdrawn his steadfast love and fidelity from my master. He has led me safely along the way to the house of the brother of my master.

“Blessed.” The entire narrative is summed up in a single word. The servant blesses the Lord because he knows that the Lord has blessed him with success. “Blessed be the Lord” – this is our song as well. Why? Because in Christ, we are blessed along with faithful Abraham. The New Testament if filled with doxologies, which invite us to praise God:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3).

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we s should be holy and blameless before him (Ephesians 1:3-4).

Praise is the Christian’s vocation. We are called to praise God every day. We have come here this morning to praise God in the company of “angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, who forever sing their unending hymn:”

And so our story ends. Rebekah agrees to go with this man, and she and Isaac meet. The final scene is described with striking economy of language and consummate artistry:

And Isaac went out to stroll in the field toward evening, and he raised his eyes and saw and, look, camels were coming. And Rebekah raised her eyes and saw Isaac, and she alighted from the camel. And she said to the servant, “Who is that man walking through the field toward us? And the servant said, “He is my master,” and she took her veil and covered her face. . . . . And Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah as wife. And he loved her.

Rebekah turns out to be a formidable woman, directing the course of events in the family. For example, she deceives Isaac into giving the blessing of the firstborn to Jacob, rather than Esau. You can hear that story next week.

“Blessed be the Lord who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.” Can we say that and mean it? Is it true that God’s grace accompanies us and blesses us throughout our lives? Or are our lives a random patchwork of unrelated events? At times, the world seems to be careening toward disaster:

Nevertheless, behind the apparent disorder of our lives and of this world, God is working out his gracious plan. The problem is that we do not see it – we see only “the back of the world,” as G.K. Chesterton put it:

We see everything from behind and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stopping and hiding a face? If only could only get round front –[9]

Faith allows us to “get round front,” even if only for fleeting moments. By faith, we can see that God is working his purpose out, that our lives are part of a larger plan, and that we are blessed with faithful Abraham.

[1] The title is from Westermann.

[2] Robert Alter’s translation here and throughout, unless otherwise noted.

[3] Moltmann, The Crucified God.

[4] From the prayer of consecration, Holy Eucharist (Rite One), BCP, 334.

[5] Magnificat (from Luke 2), BCP, 50.

[6] Westermann’s translation.

[7] Holy Eucharist (Rite One), BCP,

[8] W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming,” in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, ed., Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 131.

[9] “The Man Who Was Thursday,” quoted in Adam Gopnik, “The Back of the World: The Troubling Genius of G. K. Chesterton,” The New Yorker, July 7 and 14, 2008, p. 56.